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We're excited to announce the launch of our NEW Fiberglass & Epoxy Boat Repair & Building section on iboats.com! See more details!

This new area was created specifically to meet the needs of those of you who participate in the iboats Boat Restoration, Building, and Hull Repair forum. To kick off the launch, we are giving away free product in every order over $100 as follows:

To qualify for the free products, select any Fiberlay, Spectrum Fiberglass, System Three, or Gibco product.

Also, we have discounted our already low prices by another 5-15%. Stay tuned as we will be giving away 3 $100 iboats gift certificates from May to June to be used on the new fiberglass and epoxy products.

My brother and I recently acquired this 14' Randall craft, Flat Bottom, Fiberglass boat for a couple hundred dollars. Previously to putting it in the water for a float test, the deck was solid as a rock, we put the boat into the canal where we live, in Edgewater, Florida and it rained. Upon our first inspection to the exterior of the hull, everything looked great. We left it in the water tied up. It rained overnight, the boat got about 3" of water in it, I bilge pumped it out, and now a few days later, the surface of the deck, is all puffy and bouncy, like there is a mass of water all down the center of the boat, under the fiberglass. In one place I found a 1" hairline crack in the deck and when pressed on, water comes out but just barely.

What I am wondering, or just assuming is that there is some sort of wood / foam underneath the fiberglass deck surface that has become swollen and/or foam disloged, etc. Can anyone confirm the type of construction used on these models? I want to cut the deck off and inspect, but I dont know if I will be getting in over my head.. Please help with any info, as I don't have alot of experience with these things, but have alot of time on my hands to fix things so.. Thanks in advance, can post pictures tomorrow..

does the deck have or had any type of carpet on it? the deck may have been replaced previously and done incorrectly i had the same issue there was no foam in the below deck section of mine.... the deck wasn't sealed and water was absorbed into the ply and that makes it puffy and soggy cut down the middle from the front to back you should avoid stringers that way and then youll have to pull it up

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does the deck have or had any type of carpet on it? the deck may have been replaced previously and done incorrectly i had the same issue there was no foam in the below deck section of mine.... the deck wasn't sealed and water was absorbed into the ply and that makes it puffy and soggy cut down the middle from the front to back you should avoid stringers that way and then youll have to pull it up

In terms of carpet ever being there or not - I have no idea, it looks like just blown fiberglass, real stringy type on the deck with ALOT of wear and tear to it. I would estimate 3/4 of the deck is like this.

The issue here is that we paid 300.00 US for this boat/trailer and I want to know if its going to cost way more to fix the deck instead of just purchase something else, pictures are incoming in a few minutes.

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lowes sells Huber Advantec water resistant plywood for 23 dollars in my area (northern MO) my boat could have a new transom and floor with 3 sheets (mine is 16ft) but you have to be careful with that stuff because it is extremely heavy and you dont want to put in to much weight and you must make sure it is completely fiberglass sealed as even though it is water resistant you still dont want water coming in contact with it so you could probably redo the interior floor and transom for about another 200 that does not include the carpet to go back in it that carpet is high high high i dont think im going to get it

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So we cut the deck out of the boat to take a look, and removed about 150 lbs of waterlogged foam and plywood.

The weight of the water caused a terrible buckle on the underside of the hull I would assume from horrible repair job and a poorly set up trailer / roller. It looks like whoever owned the boat previously threw some bondo and fiberglass over top of old scraped up gelcoat.

Does this look like something that is repairable? We were thinking of cleaning out the topside of the hull below where the deck was and coating it up with a new layer of epoxy resin, fixing the damaged buckle and installing a new deck surface with some cloth glass.